Water-Related Death Investigation

Erica J. Armstrong, MD is a forensic pathologist and deputy medical examiner at the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner’s Office (CCMEO) in Cleveland, Ohio. She is a graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She completed her training in anatomic and clinical Pathology at the University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center-Institute of Pathology. She completed her training in forensic pathology at CCMEO from 2000-2002 under the mentorship of former Cuyahoga County Coroner Dr. Elizabeth K. Balraj and the late Deputy Chief Coroner Dr. Robert C. Challener. She is Director of Medical Education at CCMEO and utilizes the position to provide a comprehensive educational experience to visiting medical students, medical residents, allied health students, and other students and professionals with a connection to medicolegal death investigation. She holds academic appointments to medical and osteopathic schools. She is author and co-author of several journal articles on the topics of forensic pathology, forensic toxicology, anatomic and clinical pathology and the biological sciences. She has authored a textbook on the topic of death reporting and death certification and maintains an educational blogsite on this subject matter. Kevin Erskine graduated from Hocking College in 1982 with an associate’s degree in natural resources law enforcement. He also obtained mountain rescue, search and rescue, and EMT certifications. He began his career with the Ohio State Park Police in 1986 and developed the only State of Ohio dive team in 1998. In 2000, he codeveloped the Children’s Ice Drowning Prevention Workshop, which teaches children self-rescue techniques in the event of an ice accident. He designed a multiagency training scenario for an airplane crash in Lake Erie. Within months of the training scenario, an actual plane crash occurred within a quarter mile of the training site. In 2005, he developed the Master Water Death Investigator curriculum for the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy (OPOTA). He is an OPOTA-certified Master Criminal Investigator who has earned numerous life-saving awards for rescues of drowning victims in the waters of Lake Erie. He was recognized as "Citizen of the Year" by the Cleveland Fire Department in 2006 for the rescue of an active drowning victim within his jurisdictional waters. He has attended police diver symposiums in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; West Point; and Indianapolis. In 2011, he retired after 25 years of service to the State of Ohio. He currently serves as the training coordinator for Hope Christian Church First Responder Team in Avon, Ohio, where he lives with his wife and two sons.

1 Introduction 2 Investigative Duties on Scene 3 On-Scene Body Assessment 4 Case Investigation: Obtaining Decedent, Witness, Suspect, and First Responder Information 5 Pretrial Preparation for the Field Investigator 6 Medicolegal Investigation of Deaths: Initial Processing 7 The Medicolegal Autopsy 8 Asphyxia 9 The Forensic Pathological Aspects of Deaths Due to Drowning and Bodies Recovered from Fluid Environments 10 The Forensic Toxicological Aspects of Deaths Due to Drowning and Bodies Recovered from Fluid Environments 11 Water-Related Deaths by Manner 12 Personnel Training